Elon Musk's participation in President-elect Donald Trump's phone call with Ukrainian Presdient Volodymyr Zelenskyy is nothing to get "hyper-thyroid about," according to John Bolton, Trump's first-term national security advisor.
Still, he told CNN's Kaitlan Collins Friday, "It's certainly not a sign that order and stability have suddenly appeared at Mar-a-Lago despite what everybody is talking about, these early appointments," reports The Hill.
Trump has been speaking with several world leaders since his election win this past week, but Musk's presence on the Zelenskyy call Wednesday raised some questions.
NBC News reported Saturday that Musk had not been scheduled to be on the call. The tech billionaire walked into the room while the call was going on and greeted Zelenskyy, but did not take part in a substantive conversation between the Ukrainian leader and Trump, according to sources.
“My first reaction when I heard it was, well, so what? What’s unusual about having the Vice President-elect sitting with the President-elect on a call?" Bolton told CNN. "And then I realized, of course, Elon Musk wasn’t the Vice President-elect."
He noted that nobody knows yet what Trump's actions will be as president, but "we do hope that America will become stronger."
Of course, we cannot yet know what his actions will be. But we do hope that America will become stronger,” he said.
Trump has been saying for months that he could end the war between Russia and Ukraine, even before he takes office, but his critics say that his strategy would require Ukraine to give up territory.
And Bolton, who often criticizes Trump, said that the information about Musk being on the phone call with Zelenskyy appears to be typical for the "same chaotic, ‘Do what you want to do’ Donald Trump, with his latest bright, shiny object, Elon Musk."
Bolton was also asked what advice he'd give Trump's next national security adviser, and he said the person chosen must be able to give the president the opinions needed to "make the best selection of policy" and then make sure he follows through on the decisions.
"If the president doesn’t take your advice, then that goes with the job," he said. "You are the national security adviser and not the national security decision-maker."
However, that doesn't mean the adviser should just say "yes, sir" when the president wants something.
"You have to do what you can, and you are obviously dealing with a human being, but you need to do what you can to make sure that all of the information is available, and all of the feasible options are laid out," he said, adding that agreeing all the time serves neither the president nor the United States.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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